Blades success a hammer blow to game's credibility

Carlos Tevez celebrates his goal at Old Trafford that kept West Ham in the Premier League. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

Hugh Griffiths, the law lord who sat in judgment of the latest instalment of the Carlos Tevez affair, has played first-class cricket but he clearly did not think of the sporting implications of his ruling on Tuesday.

In seeking £30m compensation from West Ham United after they dropped out of the Premier League, Sheffield United have - through Griffiths' precedent - opened a door to all clubs who want to litigate their way out of relegation.

Had Kevin McCabe, Sheffield United's owner, played a different hand his club might now be in the top flight. Having seen West Ham plead guilty in April 2007 for the illegal registration of Tevez, and suffer a fine of £5.5m, Sheffield United appealed to the Premier League in July of that year. That appeal failed, on the grounds that the first judgment, though flawed, was not "irrational" or "perverse".

Rather than then engage in a futile and time-consuming challenge through the high court, McCabe might have headed to the Football Association, for his case to be heard before the close season was out. If Lord Griffiths' judgment is applied, West Ham would have retrospectively been deducted three points, handing back Sheffield United's top-flight status.

It would be interesting to find out how Griffiths decided he had jurisdiction over a matter which had already been considered by two Premier League tribunals and for which West Ham had been fined £5.5m. Apparently we will not know what his grounds were until the Daily Mail gives us the next chapter from its leaked copy of the judgment.

We learn from that newspaper that Scott Duxbury, West Ham's chief executive, had misled the Premier League when he told it he would destroy all agreements with Tevez's economic owners. Instead he continued to operate under their terms.

Was this the "new and compelling evidence" that under the norms of British justice is required for a higher court to ignore the 800-year-old concept of double jeopardy? Griffiths' office was unable to track him down yesterday to respond to the Guardian's email requests for a transcript of the hearing and his judgment.

The notion that the FA's arbitrations process, the rule K that was invoked by Sheffield United, is a higher court gives rise to the suspicion that this is merely the latest episode in the power struggle between Soho Square and the Premier League. The League and its counsel repeatedly urged the FA not to facilitate the arbitration, pointing out that West Ham had been tried and punished under its own systems at a time when both were among its member clubs.

The FA's rule K states that it "shall not operate to provide an appeal against the decision of a disciplinary commission or appeal board and shall operate only as the forum and procedures for a legal challenge on the grounds of a breach of contract to any such decision".

The FA set up the arbitration after Sheffield United claimed West Ham had been in breach of the implied contract that exists between two members of a league. But the Premier League's rule B13 ("In all matters and transactions relating to the league each club shall behave towards each other and the league with the utmost good faith") had dealt with this issue.

In the first hearing Simon Bourne-Arton QC declined to deduct points for seven reasons. Among them were West Ham's guilty plea; that the club had changed hands since the offence; and that the new ownership drew the League's attention to the illegal contracts.

Bourne-Arton's judgment was flawed - the appeals court judge who presided over the second tribunal, Sir Philip Otton, said he would have dealt with the untruths of West Ham executives more severely. But that does not in itself justify the decision to pursue an arbitration whose verdict rocks the very foundations of football.